


Lost Wings

by LadyRazorsharp



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen, Thunderbirds are Go! - Freeform, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 20:26:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18948226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRazorsharp/pseuds/LadyRazorsharp
Summary: This is riffing on something that @gumnut-logic started, and shouldn't be considered canon to anything she's imagined for this 'verse...but it was something that wouldn't let go!John has a generous, loving heart when it comes to his brothers. He'll give it all and never count the cost. Never.





	Lost Wings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gumnut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gumnut/gifts).



 

 

“Mrrrmmphh. Mrrrmm, rrrmm.”

 Words. At least, he thought they might be words; he couldn’t quite hear through the pounding in his head.

 Mmmrrrm? Nrrrrmph, ararraah. Raaama!”

 Forget his head, his _whole body_ pounded, as if an energetic roadmender was doing their best to sledgehammer him into an unforgiving surface. It made him want to scream, to vomit, to weep, but he was heavy. So heavy. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

  _Oh God, can’t breathe! Help, help me-_ -

 Wait, there _was_ air, but it was slipping through his mouth and nose and not reaching his lungs. _Hyperventilating,_ the word blurred through the panic. Slow. Slowly. In. Out. That was better. Yes.

 With oxygen came awareness: A soft, yielding surface under his belly and arms. His cheek, pressed into something luxuriously soft and cool. His fingers, lightly brushing the tight, silky weave of cloth. The smell of something vaguely antiseptic filled his nose; soft pulses of sound teased at his ears. The voices were close; they hadn’t noticed his moment of terror, and were continuing to speak around him.

 “--how this happened?” Anger there. The sharp edge of command, of one used to being obeyed.

 “We’re t-trying to trace it,” said another, the slight hitch in the words sparking familiarity. The person wasn’t frightened or intimidated by the commanding voice; it was just the way the words came out. “So far we’re coming up empty.”

 A sigh. “Ironic that the one person who might be able to tell us something…” the words trailed away.

 It was odd, knowing that one was being watched. He groaned in acknowledgement of that gaze. _You’re talking about me._

 Instantly, soft footsteps approached, and a hand touched the back of his head, smoothing the strands ever so gently. “John?”

  _Yes. John. That’s me. That means me._ “Yes,” he said, but it came out more like “Yuuuhhhh.”

 A relieved sigh. “Good to have you back, buddy. How do you feel?”

 “Uuuuuuuuhhh.”

 A soft laugh. “I’m sure. Brains, would you--?” A layer of delicious warmth spread over him from toes to waist; a heated blanket. He groaned his thanks, eliciting another sifting of his hair through gentle fingers. “You’re gonna be okay, Johnny. It’ll take a little while, but you’ll be okay.”

 A name pushed itself to the top of his throat. “V’rg. Virgil.” The panic threatened again, quickening the breath in his tortured ribcage. “Virgil!”

 “Easy, easy.” Scott, that was Scott, his big brother. The hand moved from the back of his head to his arm, squeezing lightly. He opened his eyes to slits, and saw Scott’s face directly in front of him, squatted down to his eye level. There was a smudge of stubble on that face, and the cheekbones were a bit sharp, but there was so much love in those blue eyes that John felt tears well up that had nothing to do with the pain thrumming through his body.

 “Easy, John. Virgil’s okay.”

 John snorted his disbelief.

 “All right, so he’s not _completely_ fine,” Scott allowed. “But he’ll heal. And so will you.”

 No, he wouldn’t. There was something...something he’d lost, something that had been taken from him. Ripped from him. Torn away, never to be replaced.

 A flash of memory: Blinding white and soft smoky dark. Buoyancy, exhilaration, a whoop of raucous laughter. Sunset. Sunrise. Ocean below, sky above. Following a pod of dolphins, watching them bounce and play, dipping to let them tap his fingers with their blunt noses.  Inky black, spangled with diamond light, close enough to touch. A star so close he could almost hold it in his hand; his mother’s star.

 The coppery reek of blood. Laughter again, this time the kind that raised the hairs on the back of his neck and sent ice through his veins. The proudly-earned muscles on his brother’s back, gleaming with sweat and shining with sharp tracery that turned from deepest black to iridescence--and then a sudden burst of raven-dark feathers, a massive span that cast shadows upon shadows.

 His own back was on fire as the delicate lines seared into his alabaster skin sprang to life. It had gotten less traumatic over the years, but never painless--except for times like the present, where the agony in his heart was greater than the pain. Without a thought, he leapt into the air, determined to help.

 Huge unseen hands gripped him, choking the breath from him, bending patagium and wrist until he screamed. Near him, Virgil yelled--and then came the sickening snap of bone and the heavy thud of flesh meeting earth.

 “Virgil?” He’d gasped. “Virgil!”

 No answer from the still form, laying on the ground amidst a scattering of inky feathers.

 " _No escape,”_ thundered a voice from everywhere and nowhere. _“Time to clip your wings, little bird.”_

  _“No,”_ he blurted. “No! Don’t--”

 Searing. Blinding. Unimaginable. He was being pulled apart, turned inside out. He couldn’t even scream.

 Then all was darkness, until--

 Scott’s eyes before him, wide with alarm. “Johnny?”

 The pillow beneath his cheek grew wet with tears. “They’re gone?”

 Scott’s eyes closed. “Yes. I’m sorry.” Warm hands in his. “But you’ll _heal_ , John. You hear me? You’ll _heal_ and you’ll be alright. That’s all that matters. You’re still _here.”_

 Never again. Never again would he soar into the sunset, or play tag with the dolphins, or hold his mother’s star in his hand.

 He wept.


End file.
